


i never was a sinner (tell me what else i can do)

by congratsyouvegrownasoul



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Disabled Character, Disabled Character of Color, F/M, I am now the author of the only two fics on this site for this pairing, I shall fete myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3448616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congratsyouvegrownasoul/pseuds/congratsyouvegrownasoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before she knew him, in the propaganda posters his young, handsome face was blazing with a look half smile half grimace, triumphant and primeval and long gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i never was a sinner (tell me what else i can do)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skytramp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/gifts).



_Time respects no person_

_And when you lift up you must fall_

_They're waiting outside_

_To claim my crumbling walls_

* * *

 

Beneath the Shield-Wall, thousands of lanterns glow, a web of light laid over the city. The night air is bracing, gusts grazing Oenone’s face like tiny pinpricks. She wraps her fingers, nestled in thin silk gloves, firmly around the tea-flask, feeling warmth radiating into her stiff hands. The dull light glints across tarnished bronze, bringing up golden flashes, sparks of color. Oenone rubs her thumb across the symbols inscribed along the flask’s rim, delicate curls of Old Mandarin worn down to shadows.

She reaches out with her other hand, alighting on her husband’s shoulder. Naga leans on his elbows on the edge of the wall, leg braces locked into position and holding his full weight, eyes fixed on the lights far below. When her fingers rest on the lapels of his coat, she feels him start even through several layers of cloth.

He turns towards her, absence lingering in his eyes for a moment before he refocuses, and smiles at her, his thin lips falling into a shape almost natural. When she first knew him, his smiles were jerky, awkward, as if his face didn’t quite trust them. (Before she knew him, in the propaganda posters his young, handsome face was blazing with a look half smile half grimace, triumphant and primeval and long gone. Worn down to shadows.)

“What do you think this says?” she asks, tilting the flask towards him so he can see the etchings. She remembers the day he gave it to her, filled then with liquor that seared her throat, already raw with fear. The day her creation-comrade killed their fallen hero, the day they sowed the seeds that grew into peace.

The joints of Naga’s exoskeleton grind as he swivels towards her, his face thoughtful. “A name, maybe? Long name, though.”

“Maybe it’s a poem,” Oenone guesses. “My mother used to paint poetry on the bottoms of our soup bowls.”

Naga laughs softly.

“My family had a plastic pot shaped like a cat, handed down for generations. We ate lemon noodles out of its head on feast days and my sister and I weren’t allowed to touch it otherwise. My great-grandmother swore it came from before the Sixty Minute War.”

Oenone smiles.

“Did you believe her?”

“I did, actually! I was too young to know that tall tales can come along with wisdom. Not my sister, though. Lin said the only way Great-Grandmother would know was if she had lived before the war too, and she wasn’t quite that old.”

Oenone giggles.

“So disrespectful! What did you do?”

“Oh, I was shocked, of course. Didn’t stop me from telling my friends that Great-Grandmother was a hundred years old and our cat bowl was a thousand.”

Their laughter trails out into the darkness. In the distance, fireworks peak on the horizon, bright tangles of blue and yellow, falling like crystal chandeliers out of the sky. Naga’s face is solemn in the lamplight, harsh angles softened by shadows.

“This is all yours, you know. This truce.”

“Mine and a thousand years of soldiers’. Mine and yours.”

“No. It’s yours to bring and ours to make it last.”

Oenone trails her fingertips along the edge of the wall, moss staining the white silk, green blurs on her hands. The green dye has almost grown out of her hair now, a pale hint bleeding into black.

“A hundred years from now, will we still need this wall? If there’s no one left to keep out, will we let it crumble?”

Naga shrugs. Silence stretches out, long and companionable. They gaze out, on the city spread below, on the night, on the lights.

“Should we? After the war, the view is still so lovely.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title and opening quote by John Mellencamp.


End file.
